6394950 I think Somber always meant to put Horizons on Fimfiction when it was finished. And he has done so.

As for it in book format. Average page count per chapter is around 40 I think. Lets call it 45 pages per chapter for a nice buffer. That's 3465 pages. The second Hardback Printing of Fallout Equestria has 645 pages in it. The entire Project Horizons could fit in five hardback books or be spread out to six hardbacks if it was done in the same style.

Average price would be around 30 bucks a book to print for a small limited run (and I bet the more printed, the cheaper it will get.) so your looking at about 180- 200 bucks for the entire series in Hardback. Honestly its not cheap. But I would buy it.

6395259
i.imgur.com/1F8gw3T.jpg
Is the appropriate response.

6395259 And, unfortunately, when I upload it, it gets a TON of errors that I have to weed out. I've had some people offer to do that for me, but while that's very generous, I think this is my responsibility.

6395367 Yes, that's generally the response I think Somber will get.

6395384 You just spent four years writing the story. I say fix a chapter a week. Might take over a year but why strain yourself?

God damnit... I so want to read this but I don't have the time to put into it yet.

Don't make me reread those later chapters again... Please ;~;

my honest opinion, having it here will make it much easier to read, simply cause it's easier to keep track of where you are chapter by chapter. Enough so i'm gonna catch up from the beginning again, but that will wait until you've got it all uploaded.

wow! I love the level up thing in the end. XD

I'm in the middle of reading Project Horizons in pdf form on my phone. Gotta say. This fic is absolutely amazing ^_^

Still not sure if I should read this or not...

Ahhhh, you ever read something, and just sigh happily? I did that, and I am happy.
Sad, but happy, cause good lord this story is just getting to me already. I am loving it, nice job on this man, nice job!
Loving how this is coming along. It took me a moment to get that P.P. was Pinkie Pie and T.S. was Twilight Sparkle.

Sad thing, their world... it came a long way, only to be destroyed in the end. woe is this world...
Gack D'x I feel like my story i s ging ot be a train ride of feels as well... jesus christ.

Nice job again Somber, nice job again.
Thanks for writing, and keep it up, and I can't wait for the next one!

6395984 I agree with this statement, it is a lot easier to read on this site.
Google docs hurts my eyes D':

6394604
That's the point. I want this in print because it is such a door stopper. I would gladly pay $500 for a hardback copy (or two, if Somber would be so generous).

I read the Lord of the Rings series in one week during 5th grade. Project Horizons is 3-4 times the size of that ENTIRE SERIES. I know what I'm getting into.

6395035

Littlepip did not kill anyone she promised not to kill.

Colonel Autumn. And the entirety of the Enclave was pants-on-head retarded most of the time. Their Raptors, the rare, valuable and very powerful ships were destroyed basically any time they were sent anywhere to do anything against anyone, and this horrendous loss of the key advantage the Enclave held over the ground ponies was apparently completely fine by the Enclave, who continued to chew through their limited supply of the valuable weapons like a fat kid in a sweet shop. Some of them were lost in staggeringly stupid scenarios (Friendship City), while others were lost to staggeringly stupid plot devices (the sonic rad-boom, Lionheart and Mouse).

It felt like the author was trying to write large-scale military operations with a heavy focus on mobility and combined-arms using the Raptors and Thunderheads, but their only point of reference for military matters was the Enclave in Fallout 3 - who were also pretty retarded in their own right thanks to Bethesda's usual standard or writing. It also didn't help that the primary enemies of this highly trained, extremely well equipped fighting force were a bunch of slaves and militias an order of magnitude below their capabilities, yet they still managed to lose basically everything in the process.

I saw a paragraph repaited twice, when Blackjack left the card game and hope P21 did not commit suicide. Just as a heads up

And love this story! now that it's on FiMFic time to read second time

I'm currently reading this story on google doc. I love it so much!

i made it to chapter 46 on the gdocs version before i heard it was getting put on fimfic. i decided to wait to finish it till it was on fimfic to finish it. thank you for this story, somber and thank you for putting it on fimfic

/me patiently waits for it to reach ch40 or 50 to start reading for the second time ^^

Just wanted to take a chance to thank Somber for an amazing story (and the editors, O.Hinds, Bronode, swicked, and Heartshine, Snipehamster, Hidden Fortune for their work as well)...

While I am still cursing the death of Glory (TWICE!), I was always waiting, impatiently I might add, for the next chapter.

This was one (of several) fics that inspired me to try my own hoof at writing.

Thanks Somber!

Glad to see you here! Started reading this close to three years ago on Google Docs....Stuck with it till the end! Now you are here! YES! The story inspired me to start sculpting and customizing toys. My very first sculpt ever was Blackjack ....I just had too! I customized a 6 inch Rarity when she (Blackjack) was re-fitted with the black Cybernetics. Made the feature on EQD custom compilation! So I thank you for sharing this awesome story. I hope it inspires many more to "Do Better" in all things! (because if you don't do better Blackjack gets all "Shooty Faced" heheheheh!) HAVE FUN!

6398069

Well, we knew the love was gonna happen regardless.

6398356
I was referring to Glory's cutie mark (or rather the lack thereof).

achievement unlocked: Casserole

Welcome, Steel Rangers! Missiles, grenades, or 5mm ammunition today?

5mm is pretty small, but I guess they are shooting at ponies. Still would take a 308.

Some ponies really respect her for that, but…

I respect Dash, for some reason in FO:E she seems to have been the pony to remain the most pure despite being really good at killing.

“She just had to say it,” P-21 muttered.

If I could kick her in the head, I would.

The drum-fed combat shotgun I’d picked up for a hundred caps roared over and over again as I retreated around the gravel pit

That is pretty damn cheap.

My move from Horizon Labs to Ironshod Firearms is jarring

Something relating to the story title. Ooooo, exciting.

I was surprised that the interior more resembled a junkyard than anything else. Piles and pallets of

The paragraph beginning with the above is missing the indent.

6406057

5mm is pretty small, but I guess they are shooting at ponies. Still would take a 308.

Remember, they ARE still ponies.

That is pretty damn cheap.

I've never had to buy one. I actually had dozens that I picked up.

she said matter-of-factly.

matter-of-factly

That's a phrase straight out of the Harry Potter books. I take you've read them then?

Red proved to be some sort of incendiary that seemed rather futile. An orange shotgun shell, on the other hoof, exploded on contact like a grenade! Perhaps not as large a blast radius as the thrown variety, but still impressive! Green just splattered some sort of goo all over the metal. Then I fired a blue shell at a turret. There was an electric flash and then the turret just stopped. I looked skeptically at the disabled device and then at my gun. At first I’d been impressed. Then a minute later, the damn thing powered back up again, and I had to disable it the old-fashioned way: with buckshot. Black simply fired a bunch of tiny sharpened nails that bounced right off the armor of the few remaining sentries.

Let's see... incendiary, yes,
HE ammo! nice!
Ooh. poisoned rounds.
Oh! EMPs!
i believe those last ones would be anti-personnel rounds.

"G.B."?

Why...That's me! What have I done??

No reference to litle pips visit to ironshod huh

Damn, i'm saying that this is defiantly before Littlepip

6850730 the last is a anti-personal round here's the wiki page for it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flechette

The Folly reminds me a lot of the Sleeper Simulant.
Only instead of just bouncing off that rock ant totally missing the murderous mega shank trying to One-up you, it just punches a straight hole in that sucker instead, and save you 34 minutes of lasers, bullets, and plenty of screaming and running in a boxed in room.

7740681 what gives you that idea?
As far as I'm concerned, most fallout figs are around the same time...except Pink Eyes, which is set 200 years before Pip.

But still, didn't you ever notice when watcher hinted at Little Pip, who was "not being hunted by raiders straight out of her stable"?

I don't know about you, but I can only think of one other fallout mare who came out of her stable not being chased by raiders and is well known to Watcher.

Anyone else hear a British ClapTrap when you imagine Watcher talking?
I mean, I know (vaguely) what he really sounds like, but I alsywas imagine 'Watcher' differently.

8071392 ahh I think that was after this chapter (chapter 5), I just made a wrong guess. after watcher said that I knew that he was talking about Littlepip. Anyways it doesn't really matter since they already met in chapter 34

No errors as far as I can tell on this chapter. Work is work. Another great first volume chapter from the early part of PH. Good on Blackjack to take the cut of Rad-scorpion glands and save some for antidotes if needed. Which was very much needed when Blackjack rushes over to Ironshod Firearms R&D to save Morning Glory from poison, as she gets in harm's way, a lot, from the get-go here.

It also just now occurred to me Megamart is basically the FoE equivalent of a Super Duper Mart turned marketplace with Bottlecap's name tag.

If a needle was used already, would sterilizing the tip with heat really remove all bacteria possible for blood infection?

Annnd 'Play' is the next chapter, grrrreaaaatt. Suspense (and more), here I come.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg34Nxb_Vjs

“Oh yes. That can be quite lucrative… provided you don’t mind letting another decide if somepony should die,” she said as she pointed at a section with a hoof. “Don’t let the language fool you. They’ll all be described as raiders, murderers, thieves, and killers… whether they are or not. Some are. Some aren’t. You decide.”

somehow that made me think of the "pirates" in "One Piece": some of them, like the main characters, were decent people who tried to stand up to the totally corrupt government...
seriously, some of the "government" people in those comics were as bad as Red Eye in the original Fallout Equestria!

oh, yeah, that name, Morning Glory, made me think of a short but funny story, "the moon, the flower, and the door." i don't want to spoil it...

6406057
5mm is minigun caliber.

8358093
If you heat a needle in a flame it does completely sterilize it.

Jesus Christ the amount of foreshadowing all the way back in the beginning. To bad I can’t remember everyone’s names.

9755913
Bit late, but this could help.

“Magical surgery’s almost as expensive as data decryption and analysis.” She regarded me for a long moment. “However, west of here is the Fluttershy Medical Center. If there were something salvageable, it would be there. The upper floors haven’t been thoroughly looted or explored. It’s a… difficult place. But shy of going to the Ministry of Peace’s hub in the Core I can’t think of any place it would be available.”

No black jack don’t go there it’s not worth your sanity

oh, dear... I just realized where I am in the story and what comes next... I'm on a reread a few years after I first finished. Prepare your selfs new reader's, this story's about to kick you in the teeth and rip out your spleen... all while trying to comfort you. Hush now, quiet now...

PLAY?

Glory had been filling us in all morning as we continued along the decayed road.

Since neither Blackjack nor P-21 have been to the surface before, Glory acts as the groups guide, which allows the author to provide the readers with information about the setting in a more natural way.

Calamity in Fallout: Equestria and Skylord in Homelands basically have the same role in their respective groups. But unlike these two, Glory herself is also new to the Wasteland. She knows more about it than the other characters in the group but she’s still unaware of a lot of things. Otherwise she would’ve known that Radscorpions are no joke.

“Go in. Make sure you talk to the manager. She was talking about you earlier,” Keystone said as she stepped aside and let us in.

Okay, maybe Watcher telling Pon3 about this wasn’t such a bad idea after all. While it gave her unwanted attention, it also seems to open doors for her.

“Yeah. It’s not a big deal. It just sort of happened,”

Why do I have the feeling that this line is going to perfectly sum up a lot of Blackjack’s actions?

“Ten thousand caps.” She looked at me with an even, sober expression. “That includes our processing fee.”

Now I’m having flashbacks to Baldur’s Gate 2’s main quest.

Blackjack and Co. doing odd job to earn money to progress the plot doesn’t sound like a very appealing story to me. But if this story is anything like Homelands, there are going to be a lot of factions and locations the author wants to introduce. So this a good excuse to send the group all over the Hoof and encounter key players, while still making some progress.

she walked to a large bulletin board that was covered with pieces of paper. Some were printed documents, but most were hoof-written. “We don’t just find things. We also handle ponies looking for special help. Sometimes it’ll be retrieving goods, other times it’s contract work like clearing out nests of dangerous wildlife or bounty hunting.”

There’s a quest board. Blackjack taking job form a quest board like the main character in a CRPG. I thought nothing in this story could surprise me, but here I’am, utterly baffled.

If Blackjack ends up killing rats in someponies basement, I’m going to instantly upvote this story.

They’ll all be described as raiders, murderers, thieves, and killers… whether they are or not. Some are. Some aren’t. You decide.

Bottlecap is surprisingly honest to Blackjack.

Shouldn’t be too hard to figure out which ones are Raiders and which ones, aren’t. If they decorate their home with body parts and show up as red on your E.F.S. you are probably justified in killing them.

“I want to help now, but she demanded the pegasi fly down and help despite the magical radiation of hundreds of balefire bombs poisoning the atmosphere. Tens of thousands of pegasi would have died, or more… We’d already lost Cloudsdale, so the pegasus council refused.

I know that the Enclave are the bad guys but that sounds pretty reasonable to me. Unless of course, this just Enclave Propaganda and the truth is something completely different.

“Okay… kill and defile… no. Defile and kill? Ugh. What is wrong with these ponies?”

“There’s also a very large amount of notes from the same guy about settlements that need help.”

Apparently they’re delicious and nutritious.

"Long as you don't have sores in your mouth for the venom to find your blood. 'Cause that'll kill you dead."

“What’s a radscorpion?” I asked, glancing at Glory.
“Well, I heard they’re like scorpions… only bigger.”
“Great. So what’s a scorpion?” I asked with a crooked little smile.
Clearly she wasn’t used to facing my level of professional ignorance. “Um… a bug. Well, technically an arachnid, but…”
I stomped my hoof, cutting her off. “Aha! Bugs. I can kill bugs. Bring on the caps!”

Clueless and underprepared. There’s absolutely no way that this can go wrong.

“Okay. So we stomp some bugs, yank out some wires, and roust some squatters. How hard can that be?”

Collect Radscorpion glands, collect blue prints, and a time-sensitive quest to remove squatters… Yep we’re in RPG town.

“I just had to say it!” I shouted over the chittering, snapping horde that was advancing at me. The drum-fed combat shotgun I’d picked up for a hundred caps roared over and over again as I retreated around the gravel pit, a half dozen of the radscorpions clawing at me with their pincers and stabbing with their venom-tipped stingers.

Chapter 1: Blackjack’s Stable gets attacked by Raiders who kill and rape the population.
Chapter 2: Blackjack storms the hideout of a group of cannibalistic Raiders who rape and eat fillies.
Chapter 3: Likeable filly character gets brutally killed because Blackjack screws up. Blackjack almost dies of radiation poisoning, shitting blood.
Chapter 4: Blackjack finds a scared Pegasus mare who witnessed the death of her comrades. Also more cannibalistic Raiders. Also also Pegasus mare has a small breakdown after being forced to kill a Raider.
Chapter 5: Characters go on fetch quests. Hijinks ensure.

This chapter has been a lot more light-hearted than the previous ones. Let’s see how long it lasts.

I also found a Crusader’s cape. There wasn’t much of it left, but I still saw the rearing white filly on the stained blue patch.

Makes you wonder how many of them meet a grisly end and how many actually survive till adulthood.

“I just believe that ponies are more likely to help then screw each other over.”

That attitude is one of the reason why Blackjack despite her flaws and screw-ups is still one of the good guys.

“You frustrate me, annoy me, and sometimes scare me half to death, but you also impress me terribly from time to time.”
“So does that mean next time I talk to Watcher I can tell him we’re friends?” I asked with a smile.
“Closer to friends,” he said as he held his hooves a millimeter apart. “About this much.”

Aww that’s sweet. They’re bounding.

P-21 and Blackjack are really great together. I understand why people like to ship them.

Most ominously, perhaps, my PipBuck identified it as simply ‘Trottenheimer’s Folly’.

I think I figured it out: Every PipBuck has a spirit bound to it.

Or Discord created them and laughes his ass off, every time a confused Pony tries to figure out how it knows all these things.

She did something with weapons in the Enclave and doesn’t want to talk about it. I’d give one of my left legs for somepony without a dark and troubled past.

Wrong kind of story Blackjack.

They’d be investigated. There’d be inquiries. My sister might lose her job. My father would certainly be disgraced. I can’t talk about it.

Part of me likes to think that the Enclave started out with good intentions. Protecting their people from the dangers of the Wasteland and all that, before slowly turning into a dictatorship.

Entry 1> I am writing these entries in the event that I am detained or have my memory modified by the MoM.

I know that these log entries are a good way to provide more backstory to the readers. Fallout does the same. But once, just once, I want to see a log that’s just a pony screaming profanities because the world is ending.

I understand it used to be a college town, but when the war picked up, the old town was leveled in a surprise zebra raid early on. The survivors swore to rebuild, and they did with a vengeance. Hoofington existed to invent things to kill zebras.

The circle of hatred. Turned a peaceful town into a war factory.

As I said this one was more light-hearted, even if Glory almost died of poison.

Plot-wise the group reached civilization and now have a clear goal: Earn enough caps to have to code decrypted. Then there’s the first mentioning of Goldenblood. Who seems to be another controversialy character. Project Horizons, is really full of them, isn’t it?

Blackjack’s On-screen Body Count : 25

10389435
Thank you.

It’s strange how I sometimes remember such small details about the story, while also forgetting other more important stuff. (Don't ask me for the name of the Atoli captain who's currently on a quest to stop Riptide. I think it started with M. )

>.> More fucking FNV Perks XD

I got to one door and immediately froze. I could feel the tingle in my skin even before I could hear the clicking of the PipBuck on my foreleg. Whatever was behind the locked door, I could live with the mystery.

Glad to see she isn't super curious like Littlepip. I do wonder what's inside tho.

They’d be investigated. There’d be inquiries. My sister might lose her job. My father would certainly be disgraced. I can’t talk about it. Not about Thunderhead or what I did there. Nothing.” She covered her face with her hooves. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. I can’t,” she said as she gave a snotty sniff.

Oh so she has siblings? Her Father is like Calamity's father with a job at the Enclave? Not sure if that privilege is only reserved for higher ranked officials or anyone who joins the Enclave. Even so it's pretty interesting that Glory is in this almost "anti-enclave" group while her father might be the complete opposite. Though I'm not too sure

Honestly, what was the deal? You round up a guy for summary execution and they never trust you again? Well, if we found something to help his bum leg, maybe then he’d start thinking of me as a friend rather than ‘stable reminder’.

I mean, I like Blackjack as a character, but she is so ignorant it hurts. Also, the fact that she do not remember stuff that made P-21 hate her so much make it worse. She legit didn't care enough to remember her execution of P-21's lover and even had a nerve to claim she didn't kill anypony before that raiders

P-21 is my fav so far. I know he ain't a saint and I vaguely remember him doing some shit in the future, but he is the most reasonable character here. And it hurts to realise that he'll never got a chance to treat his cPTSD properly. I mean, as much as it possible in Wasterland. Goodamit, he never even discovered his cutie mark. All he knew that it ain't related to sex

Also, only rereading it after a few years I realised how deeply fucked up 99 Stable were. Like I knew it's bad because well, totalitarism, bad life conditions, etc. But now it actually looks like a nightmare for everyone involved. Also, now I see so much foreshadowing to the fucked up shit that will be rediscovered later. First time I thought it was kinda random. But now I know it's not.